"We play in less then 72 hours another game and it's not enough to recover physically and mentally. And we had a lot of injuries.

"That is why it is important to take a 1-0 lead and defend well."

Defend well Manchester City did and centre-back Mangala was many supporters' choice for man of the match against Leicester City. The 23-year-old appears to finally be finding his feet at the Etihad Stadium and Pellegrini's men managed a clean sheet without captain Vincent Kompany thanks to him and Martin Demichelis.

Here's how Manchester City fans saw Mangala's display on Twitter after the game. It was certainly a good day for the Frenchman!

Love that today Mangala showed how great he could be for #MCFC. Demichelis was strong filling in for Kompany (pls be ok)

Tim Poole

Tim Poole is a sports journalist for HITC with a love of football, tennis and snooker in particular.His career to date has seen him speak to former Manchester United boss David Moyes, interview snooker world champion Mark Selby and be snubbed by Premier League managers and players in more than one language!He is a massive Roger Federer fan and lives by the motto that 'sport is life.' When he's not writing about it, he's playing it, be it football, tennis, basketball, badminton, table tennis, darts, snooker, golf or even water polo. He is better at some than others...